Witness?

I don't know how much this is true anywhere else, but in Cleveland sports are a religion.

There's really no other way to explain it.  I was reading the newspaper the other day, and they had all these photos of people looking extraordinarily downcast after watching yet another highly touted Cleveland team bomb out of its league's playoffs in spectacular fashion.  In this most recent episode, the Cavaliers essentially rolled over and died against a team they were probably better than, all the while looking lethargic, scared, and relatively hopeless.  Sound familiar?  Those are also a lot of the same problems the city in general has, ironically.

Now, disappointment and heartbreak are pretty foundational to Cleveland sports.  Every time a Cleveland team is getting even remotely close to doing something good, the sports shows inevitably have to air the montage of all of Cleveland's past failures.  I've seen this so many times that I can tell you what's coming and in what order without even watching it-- Willie Mays' catch, the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot, and 1997 game 7 are the standard lineup, sometimes with other humiliating moments thrown in for good measure.  My point in saying all this is that you might think Clevelanders would be getting used to this stuff.

This time, though, there was an extra layer of despondency and fear attached to the loss.  This particular loss happened to be in the last year of the contract of Cleveland's self-appointed savior, meaning that he could end up cutting his losses and leaving Cleveland to join another team with a better chance of winning.  I'm sure you know who I'm referring to-- giant billboard downtown?  arms outstretched in a travesty of the cross? army of fans in shirts that say "WITNESS" right above a Nike swoosh?  Yeah, that's the guy.  The imagery is almost too obvious: Cleveland is looking to LeBron for salvation.

I think somehow people have bought into the idea (read: lie) that if Cleveland could just win a sports championship, the city would be saved or somehow set on the road to recovery.  Now the best chance in years for that to happen might leave town.  You can start to see why everyone is so upset.  There's no denying the fact that LeBron's arrival and time in Cleveland have brought a lot of money to the city that otherwise wouldn't have been there, both in ticket sales and the spending of people who come from across the nation to see him.  But even if he could deliver on his promise and bring a championship to Cleveland, all of its deep, systemic problems would still exist.

It's easier, though, not to think about those real problems.  People who want to ignore them (or at least get a small respite from them) readily turn to sports as an escape, and that's where the salvation problem begins.  I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with sports; if you know me, you know I enjoy both playing sports and watching well-played games (which Cleveland unfortunately supplied very few of in this year's playoffs).  That's the thing though: sports were meant to be enjoyed.  When I saw all those depressed faces in the Plain Dealer, I couldn't help thinking that the point was being missed somewhere.  Obviously, we all want our team to win, and that's fine.  But when it becomes so pivotal to our emotions that we can't enjoy it anymore, then I think we're starting to head towards Jonah 2:8 territory.

Remember that verse? It says "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."  I feel like a lot of Clevelanders were and are forfeiting some happiness and grace they could have had by clinging to idols, whether sports, winning, or LeBron himself.  I have to include myself in that group as well.  For a lot of my life, I've lived and died with Cleveland sports.  (I wasn't really sentient for most of those montage of failure moments, but my 10-year old self was crushed after the '97 world series.)  You'd think all the disappointment might get us looking for something better.

But you know what? This isn't just about basketball or even sports in general.  The same thing happens any time we cling so tightly to things that we miss God.  This is the natural condition of all of us in our fallen state, and it's the perfect opportunity to have a real witness.  We all have things we've put our hope in that have dramatically let us down: people, relationships, jobs, money, and yes, even sports teams.  No one is exempt from this, even if they could care less about the free-agent saga of LeBron. 

We can always share our stories of our idols failing to satisfy.  And then... then we can bear witness to the One who is worthy of our praise, who has never let us down, and who will never leave us for another team.  He sees the problems in Cleveland that run much deeper than the ineptitude of our sports teams, and they don't scare him.  Our job is to show him to the people who are looking for him in a team, a relationship, or a freakishly athletic and egotistical superstar.  I think that's what it really means to be a witness in Cleveland.